The War Between The Tates (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
The book starts off with an enigmatic Jorge Luis Borges quote - right; then the reader is thrown instantly into a domestic drama: a mother, Erica, is left alone with her "rude, coarse, selfish, insolent, nasty, brutish and tall" children at breakfast. Ok, this frigid and snobby U.S. housewife doesn't like her teenage children - fair enough, but soon things get worse when Erica finds out her college professor husband has a young and pretty stupid student, Wendy. Erica burns cookies while reading a letter from Wendy to her husband."Slowly, methodically, she refolds the letter and replaces it inits envelope. There is a peculiar burning odour in the room, like explosives. For a moment Erica thinks she is having a hallucination.Then she opens the oven door: at once the ktichen fills with smokeand the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookied. The war has begun."Reading this together with the Borges quote I thought 'Wow, now the oedipal tragedy can unfold', but unfortunately the burnt cookie sceneis the most dramatic part of the whole novel.Another letter from Wendy that comes later in the story is another of my personal highlights in this book. Because for me, Wendy is a beautiful chubby-cheeked angel. She writes this letter to Brian, Wendy's adulturous husband whom she motivates to write. "I was going to disappear silently like WHOOSH away Soil and Toil on the TV only I was afraid thaf I did you might have somedoubts later and get racked up which would be a bad development because the whole idea is for Brian Not T Be Hassled, to be always more and more calm and productive and together -as much as anybody can be in this American Century – granted that. And to finish your book which will be a beautiful child for you and the world. I want to say besides, think of me some cold afternoonsin your office but I know that's an ego trip. Don'T thinkof me just remember how important what you are writingis and now nothing can get between you and it any more.And take care of yourself. Yoursyoursyoursyoursyours""And to finish your book which will be a beautiful child for you andthe world" - I love this sentence, as well as the precise astrology in the book (Cancers always make a big scene, so you stay?) and the extraterrestrial sex on acid.
Lurie is a wonderfully good writer in the sense that she is a precise stylist -- and also very intelligent. The omniscient third person point of view is her typical narrative positioning, and it suits her well; there is something rather God-like (all-knowing, but detached) about the way she observes and depicts the flawed mortals who are her characters.This is one of her best-known books. Set in the fictional university town of Corinth (New England, not quite Ivy League), it depicts the breakdown of a traditional marriage against the backdrop of the counter-culture of 1969. The marriage bits hold up very well, almost 30 years after the book was first published, the counter-culture bits less so. Not exactly a feel-good book, but sharp insights and careful details in the Barbara Pym style. She is particularly good on academia, and I would especially recommend this book to anyone whose over-exposure to that strange world will make them likely to appreciate the joke.
What do You think about The War Between The Tates (1994)?
My favorite type of book. A campus novel, written in the early 1970's and set in 1969. The protagonists are a couple in their 40's watching as as a rapidly changing world comes literally to their doorstep (in the form a new subdivision being built right at the edge of their vintage farmhouse. But things get worse as the husband has an affair with a hippie student, and the war is on! This is a wonderful time capsule of that turbulent times -- anti-war protests, astrologers, an uneasy foray into abortion politics. But at the heart a story about the people at the center and how a marriage endures through changing times.
—Anne
Entertaining and insightful, but not as good as the first two books that I read by Lurie ("Foreign Affairs" and "Truth & Consequences"), both of which were written after this one. I would describe them as "pitch perfect", but this one is a bit "off key" if you will; Lurie is clearly finding her voice in "The War..." and she hits a few false notes with her prose. It's just a bit forced and doesn't flow nearly as easily as the latter two works. That said, it's still a well-written, witty, and ever-interesting read.
—Lauren
